Fiz 5.25.05

Forgive their trespasses | Push it real good

Forgive their trespasses

Plans to fill in the abandoned Rochester subway tunnels is
not only causing a stir in the community of homeless folks who find shelter
there --- it's also sending ripples through the urban exploration community.

The Rochester subway is a favored spot among urban explorers
probably because it's relatively easy to get into, and the landscapes are so
rich once you're there. Rochester subway photos are posted on several websites
either devoted entirely (www.infiltration.org, www.uer.ca --- both covering
North America) or partially (rocwiki.org --- local info of all kinds) to the
art of urban exploration. Another local hotspot? The Rochester Psychiatric
Center, for all its creepy, highly guarded glory.

Urban explorers are trespassers, essentially, so let's keep
it quiet, shall we? Websites devoted to the hobby provide information from
ethics to safety (get your tetanus shots; test floors before walking on them)
to security to interesting sites ripe for exploration. No real names are used,
but you start to follow posters' identities and learn pretty quickly who is
willing to go where.

This is not vandalism; it's voyeurism. It's a thrill to get
into an abandoned hospital, sure. But these monuments to lost industry, closed
business, and past worship, are treated with reverence --- as if they were the
ruins of an ancient civilization.

See what's left inside the Bee Bee Power Plant, the Delco
Plant, the old church in Mt. Hope Cemetery, the underground tunnels. EvilNick,
an avid poster on www.uer.ca, took a haunting photo at Bee Bee of a worker's
abandoned desk --- prom photos, a business card, and a tie clutter the desktop.
Why do so many of these scenes give you a Pompei-like feeling? These intrepid
infiltrators are snatching moments, oddly recognizable but still so creepily
removed from us, of our history. And all we have to do is log on.

As Ninjalicious says on www.infiltration.org: "I find it sad
that most people go through life oblivious to the countless --- free ---
wonders around them."

--- Erica Curtis

Push
it real good

On
the cusp of summer, prepare yourself to be assaulted by a battery of
dragon-like lawnmowers shearing your neighbors' grass to an unnatural buzz at
ungodly morning hours. Landscape hygiene has come to a screaming pitch in urban
and suburban areas, mostly to the detriment of your peace and quiet. Especially
in the city, with houses set as close as they are, it's impossible to ignore
the John Deere thrashing about the carpet-sized yard next door.

Thankfully,
"push mowers" or "reel" mowers are experiencing a mild resurgence in landscape
culture. For the uninitiated, a push mower is the original version of the lawn
mower. They have exposed, parallel blades and run by manual power. Although we
see them now as old-fashioned, they have a much more modern sensibility than
gas-powered mowers.

The
reasons are simple: Push mowers are environmentally friendly. Gas-powered
mowers have never had the same emission-control policies as cars, and,
according to Canada's Clean Air Consumer Guide, "In one hour of operation, a
conventional gas lawnmower pollutes as much as 40 new cars." And because they
don't require gas, push mowers are much more inexpensive to run. They are also
cheaper to buy. Prices range from $90 to $200.

They
do have their disadvantages: Lawns must be maintained on a weekly basis. And
push mowers can't cut tall weeds. They also require more effort to operate, but
hey, you can think of it as lawn yoga. As one customer on the Clean Air
Gardening website recently put it, "Best of all, it is quiet. It made a soft
clicking sound as I mowed, allowing me to hear the evening calls of the
songbirds."